'Well, he determined upon an expedition to retake Nassau, all on his own,' Peyton bragged on his former neighbor. 'Sailed a scratch militia here, April of '83, with what weapons they could come up with. Tag-rag-and- bobtail effort, with no help from the Crown, you see. Well, Finney threw in with him! Brought a brace of his privateers tricked out as ships of war. They rowed their so-called troops ashore and landed them. Then they had those few men lay down in the boats and rowed back out, looking empty, to supposedly embark another batch. Kept it up until the Dons figured they were hopelessly outnumbered, and they threw it up as a bad bargain, d'you see, haw haw! Quite a stunt! And with not 200 men, all told!'
'A clever fellow, too, this Finney,' Alan smiled.
'Well, 'twas more Andrew's idea than Finney's, of course. Our 'Calico Jack' is shrewd, and ambitious. But I doubt he'd have thought of it on his own, don't you know. Or cared much one way or t'other if the Spanish held Nassau another year. He'd have made more profit from taking their ships, whilst his store sold them victuals and wine!'
' 'Calico Jack'?' Alan grinned with mirth. 'And how did he come by that charming sobriquet? Wasn't there a Calico Jack Rackham, a pirate, in these waters long ago?'
'There was,' Peyton sneered aristocratically. 'Finney came by his by the tradesman's entrance, so to speak. And more prosaic. More common, haw haw.'
Peyton Boudreau and his wife Heloise were splendid people in the main, though given to languid, highly cultured and snobbish, aloof airs of fallen Huguenot and Charleston Low Country nobility. No matter that their estate had fallen since leaving fabled South Carolina, they were still accounted regal pluses to Nassau society. And told damned juicy gossip with such wit and relish!
'Wasn't always rich, y'know,' Peyton continued. 'Had but the one packet ship, and a used-goods chandlery past East Hill Street, almost in 'Over-Hill.' Inn, chandlery, an 'all-nations' dram shop. Brokered whores out of there, too, by all accounts. Sold slop-goods and shoddy not fit for anyone but slaves and the idle poor. Little of this, then a little of that, to show a profit. Had mongers out with drays hawking his castoffs like ragpickers. But he did the best of his business in calico and nankeen cloth for use on the plantings to dress slave gangs. Condemned salt-meats, weevily flour, gin, rum and
'A most impressive feat,' Alan had to admit, though it galled.
'For a man who started out illiterate in the gutter,' Boudreau sniffed top-loftily. 'By the time Heloise and I got here in '82 when the Crown abandoned Charleston, he was strutting golden as an Ottoman sultan, with that big snip's chandlery, his fancy-goods shops on Bay Street, and half a dozen privateers flying his house flag. But, don't y'know,' Peyton snickered, 'the brats in the streets still tailed after him chanting his cant, 'Calico, calico, who'll buy my calico! Tis Jack, Jack, the Calico Man,' haw haw!'
'Oh, poor bastard!' Lewrie smiled, relishing what chagrin that would have caused the handsome Finney.
'Then, of course,' Peyton sobered, 'that was before he killed three men in duels for ragging him or sneering at him. And after he and Andrew Deveaux retook Nassau, he became a veritable social lion. For a time, mind,' Peyton chuckled meanly.
'He seems welcome in everyone's salon, though,' Alan commented. 'And people seem to accept his invitations willingly enough.'
'That's the 'fly' nature of Bahamian society,' Peyton guffawed. 'How few of them arose from the better classes? In Charleston, in London it goes without saying, and I suspect even in his native Dublin, in the better circles, John Finney'd still not be admitted but to the tradesman's entrance. There's damned few refined folk'd set foot inside his door.
'He has irked me by showing an undue interest in Caroline.'
'Ah, I
'Truly,' Alan flushed, embarrassed that the truth was out.
'Sir… Alan,' Peyton said kindly, 'Heloise and I are that taken with your lovely Caroline. She is a most handsome girl, and a most intelligent and discerning one, in addition to her sweet and modest nature. Since you and she became our tenants, she has been like one of our own daughters to us. She most sensibly inquired of us the usual things. Where best to shop, where best for bargains and such. And, more importantly, which places best avoided. And, which people to avoid, so no breath of scandal ever taints your good name, or soils her, dare I say, immaculate repute. Unlike
'Yet he seems to be everywhere we go, sir,' Alan complained. 'And he is so gracelessly… impertinent. And persistent!'
'You may not avoid him totally, since our society here is so small a circle, even with the influx of Loyalists by the hundreds,' Peyton counseled. 'Finney rose from the gutter by dint of dogged and slavish persistence, so one would suppose he believes anything will come to him, if he but perseveres. Still, he knows his place, deny it though he will.'
'If he does persist, Mister Boudreau, I'll have to call him out for it,' Alan frowned.
'Lord, no, Alan, I beg you!' the older man shuddered. 'Do not duel him! He's a crack shot, and chopping fair with a sword.'
'So am I, sir,' Alan insisted, then blurted out his fears in spite of his best intentions. 'If not Finney, then one of the other sparks who flock 'round her like so many importunate…' he tangled his tongue on his bile.
'Ah, the rest are but amusing themselves, playing the gallant and serving 'Jack-Sauce,'' Peyton dismissed with a chuckle. 'Lookee here, young sir. Duck your head and cool your blood, and I'll tell you a tale that'll set your unease to rest, damme'f I won't!'
Lewrie ducked and came up blowing and snorting.
'When Heloise and I were first wed,' Peyton Boudreau began his tale with a grin of reverie, 'I was that jealous of her. That's the curse one takes upon oneself when one weds an incredibly lovely and desirable lady. As you did. I could not abide the attention all of her old beaus showed her, nor begrudge her time or her laughter they took from me. Now, had she been nothing but handsome,with no bottom or sense, filled with frippishness and flirtations… or more so than Charleston society permitted young ladies… I'd have slain a few of the bastards. Or died because of it. And lost our last twenty years of wedded bliss. Mind you,' Peyton cautioned, tapping his nose and winking, 'it ain't all custard and cream, no paradise on silver plate. No marriage is. New marriages even less so, before one becomes accustomed. But, women are not the empty-headed, fragile and vulnerable vessels, not as false a tribe, as the 'Mar-Text' reverends tell us.'
'You've a level-headed lady, lad. Have some faith in her good judgment, in her sense of propriety. Caroline's not the sort to do anything, or allow anything or anyone to give you pause. 'Tis all in your head. The more one loves, the more intruders seem threatening. And, believe this when I relate it to you, the girl loves you with a single-minded devotion I could toast bread on! Your name, or tales about you, form half her waking conversation! I doubt she could sew a hem in a drape without thinking of how you would approve of it!'
'Thankee, Mister Boudreau, sir,' Alan sagged in some measure of relief. ' 'Tis gratifying to hear. But what dissuaded you from dueling those former rivals of your wife?'
'A long talk with a sage old uncle of mine, much like this.'
